Reading 1, James 5:1-6
1 Well now, you rich! Lament, weep for the miseries that are coming to you.
2 Your wealth is rotting, your clothes are all moth-eaten.
3 All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be a witness against you and eat into your body. It is like a fire which you have stored up for the final days.
4 Can you hear crying out against you the wages which you kept back from the labourers mowing your fields? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Sabaoth.
5 On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart’s content.
6 It was you who condemned the upright and killed them; they offered you no resistance.
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 49:14-15, 15-16, 17-18, 19-20
14 They are penned in Sheol like sheep, Death will lead them to pasture, and those who are honest will rule over them. In the morning all trace of them will be gone, Sheol will be their home.
15 But my soul God will ransom from the clutches of Sheol, and will snatch me up.
16 Do not be overawed when someone gets rich, and lives in ever greater splendour;
17 when he dies he will take nothing with him, his wealth will not go down with him.
18 Though he pampered himself while he lived — and people praise you for looking after yourself-
19 he will go to join the ranks of his ancestors, who will never again see the light.
20 In prosperity people lose their good sense, they become no better than dumb animals.
Gospel, Mark 9:41-50
41 ‘If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, then in truth I tell you, he will most certainly not lose his reward.
42 ‘But anyone who is the downfall of one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone hung round his neck.
43 And if your hand should be your downfall, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that can never be put out.
44
45 And if your foot should be your downfall, cut it off; it is better for you enter into life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.
46
47 And if your eye should be your downfall, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell
48 where their worm will never die nor their fire be put out.
49 For everyone will be salted with fire.
50 Salt is a good thing, but if salt has become insipid, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.’
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